Before we bake Tartine’s wonderful Country Loaf, we have to make our leaven. The leaven is the stuff that’s going to officially go into your loaves to make them rise. In other words, it’s your yeast.

Making the leaven is pretty similar to what you’ve been doing for the past week during feedings, only the proportions are going to be different and more precise here and you’re going to let it ferment for a shorter period of time. Do not forget this key step: set aside at least a tablespoon of your starter, before making the leaven. Feed that tablespoon the way you’ve been feeding your starter all along (look back to Step 2 if you need a reminder). You also have the option of moving the excess starter to the fridge for 7 days before feeding it a couple times to prepare it for baking. You can find details on this in a VERY old post if you need a little more help.

To bake this particular loaf, you’re going to need to do some scheduling before you make your leaven. Remember at the beginning when I told you that Robertson simplifies sourdough starter? That is true. The process for actually baking the bread is another story, however. If you’re new to baking, or if you’re used to baking “normal” loaves at home, this is going to significantly step up your game. For me, this process works best when I plan it for 2 nights and 1 day, or 2 days and 1 night. Here is an example of how it might work, followed by a shorter scheduling option if you’re doing this on a weekend day. This is for theoretical planning purposes only, you can choose to start this process any time you like. I sometimes make the leaven in the am and begin bulk fermentation in the evening.

Scrape as much leaven off your fingers as you can after mixing, and clean up the sides of your bowl.

Extended Fermentation/Rising

Monday Night

Mix leaven (10 minutes)

Let leaven ferment before preparing dough (8 to 10 hours)

Tuesday Morning

Mixing the Dough (10 minutes)

Let dough rest (20 to 45 minutes)

Tuesday all day

Bulk fermentation and turning (10 to 12 hours) depending on temperature between 55°F and 65°F. You will need to periodically put your hands on the dough, so plan to be around for the first couple hours and the last hour of fermentation.

Tuesday Evening

Dividing and Shaping (45 minutes including resting time and final shaping)

Tuesday Overnight

Final Rise (8 to 12 hours in the fridge)

Wednesday Morning

Heating the oven, scoring and baking (1 hour)

Cooling (2 to 4 hours)

In other words, this can really stretch out. Make sure you’ll have free time/will not be at work when it’s time to move on to the next step. Doing a long bulk fermentation and a long final rise mean that the process takes longer overall, but it will also mean that you don’t have to wait until the weekend to get a baked loaf, provided you’re an early riser. If you want to go for shorter fermentation times, you’ll need to be near your dough at more regular intervals, so if you have a 9 to 5 workday, just keep feeding your sourdough as you have been until Friday and then start this process as above.

Shorter Fermentation/Rising (italics denotes difference from above)

Monday Night

Mix leaven (10 minutes)

Let leaven ferment before preparing dough (8 to 10 hours)

Tuesday Morning

Mixing the Dough (10 minutes)

Let dough rest (20 to 45 minutes)

Bulk fermentation and turning (3 to 4 hours at 78°F to 82°F). You’ll need to be around for this period of time.

Tuesday Afternoon

Dividing and Shaping (45 minutes, including resting time and final shaping)

Final Rise (2 to 3 hours at 75°F to 80°F)

Tuesday Evening

Heating the oven, scoring and baking: 1 hour

Cooling: 2 hours

This may seem like a lot of work. Most of it is just waiting (something we, the fermenters, are well-versed in). The first time is the most complicated, because there are things to learn and because you had to actually establish your sourdough starter from scratch first (in the future, you’ll just be pulling it out the fridge, feeding it for a day or two and then going to town). Just know that this is very likely to be the best homemade bread you’ve ever tasted, and that it will also be WAY better than the majority of bread you can buy even at nice bakeries. So stick with it, and definitely buy a copy of Tartine Bread.

Nothing left to do but scrape down the sides of the bowl, cover and set aside for 10 hours.

Has your little bowl of flour and water been sitting for 2 to 3 (or maybe 4 or 5) days? Seeing those bubbles yet? Has your starter formed a nice little crusty upper shell? The “crust” isn’t required, it just kind of happens when air meets flour combined with water.

Once you see a good amount of activity (aka bubbles) when you look through the glass bowl, congrats! You’ve harnessed wild yeasts (and bacteria), and now it’s time to start training them so you can ride them off into the sunset use them to make unbelievable bread.

Once you peel back the hardened, upper layer, you’ll see the bubbly texture that has formed underneath.

This training period is a feeding of your starter and it will allow the community of bacteria and yeast that provide the flavor and rise of sourdough to become stable and reliable. As Chad Robertson says in his book Tartine Bread (from which we are drawing this entire edition of Sourdough Starter School) this is the time to pay attention to how your sourdough changes throughout the fermentation process. Give it a good sniff before and after feeding. What has changed? When do you see the most bubbles? Do you notice a difference in appearance, smell or consistency when the temperature in your home shifts? Give a little attention to all of these things, and you’ll begin to develop a sense of when your starter has stabilized and when it’s ready to use as actual leaven for bread. We’ll discuss both of those over the next 3 days of Sourdough Starter School, but for now, let’s get feeding.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve (finally) started paging through my favoriteseedcatalogs, thinking about seeds, planting and the soil in which I grow my food. I live in South Philly, so the vast majority of my gardening is done in containers, and as my favorite gardening guru said (or perhaps wrote in one of her books), for all intents and purposes, the soil is the garden.

Since those bacteria start in the soil, they are primarily present on the peels or skins of the vegetables. I took a big ol’ class with Sandor Katz last summer and one of the (many) things I asked in the class was whether or not it is true that the bacteria lived pretty much exclusively on the peels. Katz confirmed that it was, and made a fun analogy that has stuck with me. He compared the bacteria on the peels of vegetables to the bacteria on our skin and throughout our digestive tract (from mouth to intestines). Other than that, our bodies are generally free from bacterial life. Since vegetables don’t have a digestive tract, the bacteria with which they co-exist inhabit their skins, almost exclusively. Click to see which vegetables should keep their peels and which can lose them

People used to tell me that time moves much more quickly when you’re older and now I know they were right. I can hardly believe this is the last day of 2014.

This has been quite a year! I taught many fermentation classes and had tons of fun doing it. I collaborated with the amazing people of High Street on Market on fun and inventive, fermentation dinners. I met my fermentation hero, Sandor Katz. I wrote a vegetable fermentation cookbook, Ferment Your Vegetables, A Fun and Flavorful Guide to Making Your Own Pickles, Kimchi, Kraut and More (check your local bookstore this fall). 2013 sucked, and I vowed that this year would be better. It was. It was infinitely better and more fun, and it has left me full of gratitude and so excited for the opportunities for collaboration and more fermenty fun in 2015.

Thank you so much for reading this year. And thank you especially for sticking around after the big ol’ lull that occurred in the final months of book-writing. I wish you a joyous and gratitude-filled 2015! Here are your favorite posts of 2014! Click to see your favorite ferments of 2014